Touch growing up

The ability to touch is one of if not the biggest sensory organ, every inch of our body can be used to feel with some spots better than others. In the book The Deepest Sense the author Constance Classen talks about how touch is more than contact with a surface but all the emotions and outside factors contribute to our feelings. One place that in my life that I think touch played a huge role for me was when I would go down to a harbor in the summer and send from morning to after night fall there hanging out. I would walk around a feel the hot sun on my skin but at the same time the cool sea breeze, every place I go now and I feel this combo of hot and cold it always reminds me of that harbor. Another way my touch was used is I use to love to go crabbing down on the docks and in the beach areas. This is another spot where another aspect of touch would be shown, when handling the crabs there was a certain place you need to grab them in order to avoid their claws. If you didn’t grab it and feel for the right spot there was a chance to drop in or in some cases feel another type of touch, pain. Another example of touching and how it can be different from person to person is when I was young and use to set traps at this harbor, we would go to local fish stores that had fish carcasses that we used. Some friends and I were ok with touching the dead, slimy fish while some of my other friends wouldn’t touch it. This is interesting to me that a feeling, a harmless feeling can play a huge role in somethings we do and certain feelings can cause these responses in some people while in other people it doesn’t affect them. Another example of this is when we would go crabbing in the water at night and you would only be able to see where your spot light was at as different creatures and fish and something just seaweed would cross over your feet in waist deep water. Again, some friends, who would do it all day, wouldn’t dare to get into the water at night in fear of losing a toe. The sensations of feeling but not seeing can put fear into many. A simpler example is those videos of people having to reach into boxes to touch something but can’t see the object. But something like a soft stuffed animal in the box can sometimes be enough to scared an unsuspecting person who reaches into the box. These are just some ways I have personally interpreted touch and how its shaped my life and plays a role.  Below is a picture of the harbor I would go to growing up.